Clark Magnet High School Monday won its first ever Glendale Unified High School Scholastic Bowl, besting Hoover, Glendale and Crescenta Valley high schools in a friendly academic competition that annually pits some of the district’s best students against one another. “It feels great to win,” said Clark Magnet senior Saro Meguerdijian. “It is a desire accomplished.” Members of the five-member Clark Magnet team trained during their lunch break every day for months in preparation for the scholastic bowl.

Janine Marnien LA CRESCENTA -- Eleven Clark Magnet High School students walked away with fifteen awards at this year's National Scholastic Art Competition. Four first-place, five second-place and seven honorable mentions were awarded, making Clark Magnet High one of the top six schools in the contest. The contest was open to all Southern California schools. A total of 800 works were submitted in the contest. First-place winners were Peter Sriployrung, Lili Melikian, Christine Ji and Saiedeh Omidghaemi.

Vegetables, yams, peaches, pears, cranberries, stuffing, even the bird -- all the required ingredients for a Christmas dinner were gathered recently at La Crescenta Elementary School to donate to 10 needy families. Each grade at the school was assigned a different food category -- kindergartners were responsible for gathering canned vegetables, and first-graders were in charge of Jell-O and pudding. Two boxes of food for 10 families were gathered in holiday-wrapped packages and distributed to the chosen families, some of whom were La Crescenta Elementary families, some of whom were Cerritos Elementary families, parent and organizer Dawn Myhall said.

Alecia Foster DOWNTOWN -- Five high school seniors were recently recognized by the Glendale City Council for their accomplishments. The students, representing the school district's five high schools, were all recipients of the Glendale Hispanic Business and Professional Assn. scholarships. Academic achievement, service to school and community and the potential for leadership are considered. Members of the association also take into account students who have overcome obstacles or who are the first in their families to attend college.

LOS ANGELES — One-armed machines on wheels faced off Friday in a robotics competition that was the culmination of six weeks of ingenious engineering for two Glendale schools. "I think if you look beyond just building a robot, it's the whole experience," Crescenta Valley High School student Ara Kourchians, 17, said of his experience in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — Los Angeles regional robotics competition. "The robotics shop just becomes your home."

Gary Moskowitz GLENDALE -- The school board might ask families of Clark Magnet High School students to help cover the cost of busing to Clark Magnet High School. But board members say they're hoping they won't have to. Busing students to Clark costs the district $700,000 each year in general fund money. The service is provided to about 600 students from Glendale and Hoover high schools who are eligible for transportation to Clark. Supt. Jim Brown said the district is considering charging families of Clark students transportation fees to remove the burden from the general fund.

Four Glendale Unified School District schools were among a list of 200 selected Monday for the Title I Academic Achievement Award. The awards, announced by State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, were given to Clark Magnet High, Franklin Elementary, Jefferson Elementary and John Muir Elementary schools for demonstrating that all students had made academic progress, according to a news release. The schools had to meet Title I Schoolwide Program requirements, meaning that more than 40% of their students had to be from “socioeconomically disadvantaged” backgrounds, and had to demonstrate that the students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds doubled the achievement targets set for them over two consecutive years, the release said.

Ten Years Ago The first magnet school in the Glendale Unified School District opened its doors in September 1998 with a ceremony and ribbon-cutting at the site of the former Clark Junior High. The new Clark Magnet High welcomed approximately 500 ninth and 10th grade students on the first day of school. Twenty Years Ago A raccoon that had run afoul of a high-voltage power line at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was responding to treatment and doing very well, according to a spokeswoman for the Wildlife Waystation in Little Tujunga Canyon, where the 10-pound animal, nicknamed “Voltage,” was being cared for. Thirty Years Ago All-American wide receiver Rick Fry, fresh from a three-year football career at Occidental College, joined Falcons’ head coach Dennis Gossard at Crescenta Valley High where he had once played as a student.

Alecia Foster SOUTHEAST GLENDALE -- While many high school students will be enjoying their summer break at the beach, others will spend their days in a classroom. Summer school for the district's high schools begins Monday and classes have been filling up fast, said Pat Ryan, a counselor at Glendale High. Some students, however, did not get the classes they wanted and others still have not signed up, she said. "We've been getting hundreds of phone calls," Ryan said, adding that students and parents have been asking what to do. Anyone who did not get a class or wants to sign up for a class should go to the school at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday morning to find out if spots are available, she said.

Public invited to Clark Magnet Eighth-grade students interested in attending Clark Magnet High School next year are invited to tour the school Saturday during its Clark Expo and Presentation. A parent-information meeting is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Saturday at the school, at 4747 New York Ave., La Crescenta. The expo, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., will be a chance for prospective students to meet teachers and for students and learn about the school's clubs and departments.

Two groups of students at Clark Magnet High School are each in the running to win $30,000 after successfully beating more than 30 other teams at high schools across the western region in an environmental studies competition. As part of the Lexus Eco Challenge, one team looked at how land devastated by the Station Fire is recovering and the other studied the effects of acid rain. After collecting data from two high-altitude balloons students launched in 2012 and earlier this year, Team 696 captured images taken thousands of miles above the Angeles National Forest, including the more than 160,000 acres burned in the Station Fire.

Through a happy accident involving a pair of high-attitude balloons, Clark Magnet High School students have detailed images of the mountains charred by the 2009 Station Fire, allowing them to study how well the area is recovering. The group, working with robotics and engineering teacher David Black, is chasing a $10,000 prize awarded by the Lexus Eco Challenge by studying how invasive plant species put down roots in the wake of forest fires. Team 696, the school's robotics team, will tap into data collected by cameras on high-altitude balloons Clark students launched in 2012 and 2013 that captured photographs of the mountains from a distance.

A top-ranking federal education official on Tuesday visited Clark Magnet High School, where he reviewed some of the school's key practices, including its science-heavy curriculum and multimedia career tech program. The visitor, Greg Darnieder, is a senior policy advisor for the U.S. Department of Education, where he advises the education secretary on college access, dropout prevention and middle to high school transitions. Darnieder's visit was facilitated by Clark Magnet teacher Edit Khachatryan, who serves as a Teacher Ambassador Fellow with the U.S. Department of Education.

Clark Magnet High School Monday won its first ever Glendale Unified High School Scholastic Bowl, besting Hoover, Glendale and Crescenta Valley high schools in a friendly academic competition that annually pits some of the district’s best students against one another. “It feels great to win,” said Clark Magnet senior Saro Meguerdijian. “It is a desire accomplished.” Members of the five-member Clark Magnet team trained during their lunch break every day for months in preparation for the scholastic bowl.

LA CRESCENTA — Dominique Evans-Bye alternated between bar graphs, geographic maps and spreadsheets filled with population, schools, hospitals, police, fire and rescue locations and resources. Her computer screen had little room for anything else. In a few clicks, a change of screen, and another couple more clicks, the Clark Magnet High School teacher produced data for hypothetical elected officials or FEMA and Homeland Security Department authorities. With some further work, she'd complete a low-level analysis of how a severe hurricane would impact Port Charlotte, Florida.

I n less than 15 seconds, fourth-grader Abigail Simpson hopped about 40 yards Wednesday during a sack race — one of almost 20 games — at Monte Vista Elementary School. Her friends said she was a fast runner, but Abigail seemed impressed with her potato-sack racing skills. "I don't have a secret. I'm just a fast runner," she said. It was Run & Fun Day, where the school's third-, fourth- and fifth-grade classes maximized three hours of organized play time.

GLENDALE — In an effort to tamp down on transportation costs, Glendale Unified officials said many families will likely pay $100 per year to bus their children to and from Clark Magnet High School beginning this fall. School board members on Tuesday told administrators to draft policies that would charge parents $50 each semester to bus their children to the north Glendale campus, saving the district $50,000 every year. The district spends $800,000 on bus service and is preparing to tackle a $21.8-million deficit projected for 2012-13.

About 900 people were exposed to original student poetry, song and dance Wednesday at an Armenian Genocide remembrance ceremony at Glendale High School. The ninth annual Genocide Commemoration featured several performances produced and orchestrated by students from all of Glendale Unified’s high schools, as well as Toll and Wilson middle schools and Fremont Elementary School. “I want people to leave thinking, as a community we are united as young adults to stop genocide and crimes against humanity,” said Talar Malakian, a senior and president of the Armenian Club at Crescenta Valley High School.